The Georgia Supreme Court has

overturned a delinquency ruling against a 16-year-old boy who was caught

having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend at her Fayette County home

in September of 2001.

The boy, identified in press

reports as Jesse McClure, now 17, had been ruled delinquent after being

charged under the state's fornication law, which forbids unmarried people

from having sex. However, another Georgia law allows persons 16 and older

to legally have intercourse.

The court ruled that "private,

unforced, non-commercial acts of sexual intimacy between persons legally

able to consent" is protected by the Georgia Constitution. And since

there was no force involved and neither the boy nor girl paid the other

to engage in sexual activity, their "acts were private," the

court ruled.

The two 16-year-olds were caught

according to court records.

The girl had closed her bedroom

door and placed a stool against the door, "further evidencing her

and McClure's efforts to keep their acts private," the court wrote.

"Under these facts, we

find that they intended to keep their sexual activity private and took

reasonable steps to ensure their privacy," the opinion states.

McClure was represented by

Catherine Sanderson of the Peachtree City law firm of Cook, Lundy and

Sanderson, P.A. and by Gerry Weber of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Fayette County prosecutors

had argued that since McClure did not live in the house, he did not have

a right to privacy when the girl's mother entered her daughter's bedroom.

But the Supreme Court noted in its opinion that the daughter had invited

the boy to the house on this particular occasion and he had been invited

to the home previously.

"An invitation to enter

another person's private home does not include an implicit condition that

the guest surrender his constitutional right to privacy," the court

wrote.

The opinion, authored by Chief

Justice Norman S. Fletcher, also indicates the court was not ruling on

whether or not the girl's parents could regulate what occurs inside their

home.

"Rather, our opinion simply

affirms that ... the government may not reach into the bedroom of a private

residence and criminalize the private, noncommercial, consensual sexual

acts of two persons legally capable of consenting to those acts,"

the opinion stated.

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